Public Lettering a Walk in Central London
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Public lettering a walk in central London British Library Euston Road, WC1 While the railway stations next door use their architecture to announce themselves, the British Library —[designed by Colin St John Wilson from 1978 onwards, the building was not opened until 1997]— sits back from the road and is approached through the dramatic gates and across an enclosed garden. The large lintel of the gatehouse features carved, raised letters on red sandstone. The work of David Kindersley’s workshop, its individual letters and words are well- formed, but the composition as a whole is fatally flawed because the over-large definite article dominates quite unnecessarily. But below, the gates themselves, cut out of heavy sheet steel, are much more successful: they do not contain lettering, they are lettering. BRITISH LIBRARY is repeated and progresses from ‘light’ to ‘ultra black’. Beyond the gatehouse and across the courtyard, all the library’s internal signage was designed by Pentagram under the direction of Mervyn Kurlansky. It uses the typeface Centaur and is useful only as an example of how not to space capital letters. St Pancras station WC1 At the time of preparing this, St Pancras is currently being redeveloped in readiness for becoming London’s second Eurostar terminal. —[St Pancras station buildings were designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott for the Midland Railway from 1868–76 and front a single-span train shed of 1866–8 by F H Barlow & R M Ordish. The Eurostar terminal will include a new Underground ticket office under the station forecourt and involve the moving of the gasworks to the north of King’s Cross station.] In addition to a few much older examples, there still remain traces of the Design Research Unit’s British Rail corporate identity of 1964. This used the Rail Alphabet designed by Jock Kinneir & Margaret Calvert. A sans serif typeface, it was designed as a tiled system to enable correctly spaced signs to be assembled by untrained staff. King’s Cross station N1 publiclettering.org.uk If St Pancras is about romance, Kings Cross —[designed by Lewis & Joseph Cubitt in 1851–2]— is about function, its façade simply being a screen to the end of the twin arched sheds over the arrival and departure platforms. Very few traces of British Rail’s 1964 corporate identity exist here. Perhaps their privatised successors Railtrack, viewed it as too brutal. King’s Cross was re-signed in 2001, with trendy colours and a new typeface: they are in no way an improvement. 319–321 Gray’s Inn Road Painted house numbers and advertisement, presumably dating from the late nineteenth century. These have a wonderful disregard for the building – look at the way they run over the first floor window arcading – hard to imagine that many shops and buildings must once have been painted this way. What a shame the present owners don’t repaint them regardless of the building’s current use. Road traffic signs This example Gray’s Inn Road/Britannia Street, WC1 The system used in Great Britain is that designed by Kinneir Calvert for the Worboys Committee (1963) following the style they had designed for the motorways (Anderson Committee) in 1958. The alphabet itself is sans serif, carefully spaced to ensure legibility when seen from a distance and at speed. Different versions are provided for reversed out or black lettering. Signs have different coloured (and latterly, reflective) backgrounds for different classes of road – blue for 1 motorways, green (as here) for primary routes, white for local signs. Because the distances between all elements on a sign are specified, the size of each sign varies. The circular, rectangular and triangular signs containing mainly pictorial warnings or instructions follow the forms set out in the Geneva Protocol of 1948. Taken as a whole, the system carefully addressed all the issues of legibility of letterforms when seen at distance when moving and clarity of information presented. Visually they were a huge step forward from previous versions and still look remarkably fresh today. Central London Throat & Ear Hospital (The Royal National Throat, Nose & Ear Hospital) Gray’s Inn Road, WC1 There are several versions of the name on the two buildings here. On the original building the frieze at the top contains egyptian letters cast on terracotta blocks. Almost monoline in construction, each is placed centrally on a square block which creates an irregular rhythm to the words containing I. Above the ground floor are newer Trajan-derived steel letters whose chief quality is usefulness for pedestrians. On the north-facing, flanking wall another version of this name and lettering style appears as a white and blue glazed panel set in the brickwork. A third version of the name appears at eye level. While the letterform – a condensed modern – is more usually associated with fashion magazine mastheads, its execution is interesting being apparently cast with the terrazzo panels of the wall. Royal Free Hospital Gray’s Inn Road, WC1 There are carved inscriptions below both pediments of this building which somehow seems too big for the street. Each works well within its space and shows up all the later versions saying Eastman Dental Hospital both beside the arch and on the newer building next door. Parsons’ Library Doughty Street/Guilford Street, WC1 Despite being 2 feet high this is the most reticent building name discussed here – I must have cycled past it hundreds of times in the twelve years before writing-up the first version of this walk in 1997. For all intents and purposes the lettering is Gill Sans, but it is relief- publiclettering.org.uk carved out of brick and projects perhaps an inch from the wall itself. Like many of the other examples it forms a frieze just below parapet level. Royal London Homœopathic Hospital Great Ormond Street, WC1 Nothing great here, but like many buildings which have been added to over a period of time, there are a variety of different names and materials to see. Terracotta lettering set into the brickwork facing the childrens’ hospital (main picture); glazed terracotta panel on the corner with Queen Square; and cut-out steel lettering on the balcony above. British Monomarks 27 Old Gloucester Street, WC1 A simple but very effective use of cut-out steel and silhouette to announce the company’s name down this small alley. Faraday House 48 Old Gloucester Street, WC1 This carved, raised, building name shows one of the more playful approaches to our subject, some letters being reduced to abstraction making them legible as letters only when seen in the context of the rest. The letters are carved from the blocks making up the wall and until 1995 were self-coloured. Unpainted, they were emphatically part of the wall, a fact disguised by colour. 2 Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design Southampton Row/Theobald’s Road, WC1 As first planned the Central School of Arts & Crafts—[by W E Riley with A Halcrow Verstage of the LCC Architects’ Department for W R Lethaby, the school’s founding Principal in 1907–9]—would have had carved lettering on the corner but all that was executed was the original name above the outer entrance doors. A name change to Art & Design in 1966 was ignored, but in 1989 the college was merged with St Martin’s School of Art and became part of the London Institute. The name placed outside in the early 1990s is an example of how not to do it. As with most corporate identities, this one decrees that all buildings are signed in an identical way regardless of age, history or style. Pharmaceutical Society Great Russell Street/Bloomsbury Square, WC1 This example of a v-cut monoline egyptian with even character widths dates from 1860 and until at least 1975 was gilded which must have looked even better. Nevertheless it is a fine form and works well in the space and with the architecture. British Museum Great Court Great Russell Street, WC1 After the British Library moved to St Pancras in 1997 building work began here to transform the area around the former Reading Room. Norman Foster’s scheme enclosed the brick Reading Room in stone to match the surrounding buildings —[The main parts of the museum were designed by Sir Robert Smirke between 1823–47. The domed Reading Room was the work of his brother Sidney and was finished in 1857.]— and the whole area was roofed with a geodesic-like glazed roof. From afar it looks as though a bouncy castle is on the roof, from inside, as though you’re walking through a computer-generated image. The lighting is flat and slightly blue and the sound, when full of schoolchildren, is like a swimming pool. The sense of space which was, on opening, impressive, has largely been nullified since by a plethora of direction boards and two information desks. The drum of the Reading Room is surmounted by an inscription saying when and why, while lower down, sponsors’ names cover the surface. A quote from Tennyson is set in the floor. Compared to the quality of Michael Harvey’s work at the National Gallery this is a real disappointment, the letterforms are virtually the typeface Rotis, publiclettering.org.uk Foster’s corporate face. At the upper level it has a shallow square-cut section and is set too high in the space. The sponsors’ names in upper & lower-case are spaced for pattern-making rather than readability. None of it feels as though it were done by someone who really loved lettering or the effects of light and shadow and scale.